


i just wanna feel normal for the night

by curledintoaball



Category: Cobra Kai (Web Series)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Banter, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Light Swearing, Mutual Pining, Pining, Post-Canon, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Zero Word Count Control, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 08:34:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28917654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curledintoaball/pseuds/curledintoaball
Summary: He's looking at her like she's the only thing in the world.No, that's not right. They hate each other. God, that's the last way he would look at her.Sam blinks and looks away the moment she catches herself looking at his lips, pushing the thoughts about how soft they look from her mind.In the dim light of the dojo, his skin looks paler than usual, the scar on his lip standing out more starkly. She fights the impulse to trace it, ending up at his lips before she--She blinks once more, cursing herself and wondering what's wrong with her as she says with a small smile, "I won."or; five times sam sees hawk at miyagi-do at night training and one time he sees her(title from "normal" by sasha sloan)
Relationships: Samantha LaRusso/Eli "Hawk" Moskowitz
Comments: 17
Kudos: 45





	i just wanna feel normal for the night

**Author's Note:**

> there's not enough fics for this ship so i thought i would change that. ever since season 3 came out, this pairing has been on my mind and i couldn't stop myself from writing a fanfic for them.
> 
> let me know what you think!

Sam usually finds herself training for a lot longer than the others. After her and Miguel broke up a few months ago, all she wanted to do was stay home and never see anyone again. But she’s over it now. Miguel has moved on, and so she should as well. Right now, though, she can’t sleep and she’s feeling the need to punch something hard.

She parks her car just outside the Miyagi-Do dojo, switching off her workout playlist blasting from the speakers and transferring them to her earphones instead. 

Slamming the door shut resolutely, she locks the car with a click of her keys and heads straight into the dojo, not bothering to switch the lights on as there’s just enough moonlight for her to orient herself through to the backyard. 

Something on the ground stops her short. Bending down, Sam picks up a black towel, bringing it close enough to her face to see the what’s printed on it. The Cobra Kai logo stares back at her, almost mockingly. The fight with Tory a few weeks ago comes flooding back to her like a tidal wave. The anxiety that clawed its way through her chest doesn’t hurt as much as it did before. She’s progressively getting stronger, she knows that. But it’s not something that will be easy, she knows that as well.

She drops the towel with a sigh, knowing that whichever former Cobra will get it back tomorrow when they arrive for training after school. She wishes her dad will get them a different towel. She’s sick of looking at that logo.

She places her water bottle on the ground and slides open the backyard door, stoping short again and almost choking on a gasp as she sees a figure at the punching bag. 

Sam yanks one earphone from her ear and is about to run and attack the intruder for breaking and entering, when his movements make her pause. 

There are no lights on in the yard, but the moon shining down is bright enough for her to see the figure punching the bag like his life depends on it. 

At first, she thinks it might be one of the Miyagi-Dos or even her dad, but his familiar form and hair gets her attention. 

Hawk still hasn’t noticed her presence; he just continues to punch at the bag of sand with small, frustrated grunts through his teeth. When Sam pauses her music and pulls the remaining headphone out from her ear, she can hear his own playlist blasting loudly from his own earphones.

Sam is tempted to leave—to turn around and head straight home. But something about this moment stops her again. 

Hawk’s back is to her. She notices the white tank-top he’s wearing, and even in the darkness Sam can see the hawk tattoo where sweat has started to seep through the fabric. She allows herself a moment to appreciate the way his muscles move as he hits the punching bag, how his back constricts for only a second before he strikes.

He stops suddenly, breathing heavy and staring at the beige fabric, watching it slow down. Hawk still doesn’t notice her, which Sam is not surprised at since his music is obnoxiously loud.

She attempts to take a step back into the main dojo, but she doesn’t get far. Her back hits the frame of the door and she lets out a sharp gasp, cursing under her breath just before he turns around and spots her.

Hawk startles for a moment, squinting into the darkness before pulling his earphones out. “How long have you been standing there?” he demands, his breathing still uneven. He pauses his music, shoving his phone and earphones into his pocket with an angry grunt.

“Not long,” Sam replies, crossing her arms over her chest and adopting an almost irritated expression. “What the hell are you doing here so late? I thought you were a burglar or something.”

Hawk walks forward slowly before stepping onto the deck. The moon is at the right spot over the dojo, because Sam can see the sweat lining his forehead and throat. His signature mohawk is no longer red-tipped—just black and shorter as well. “I could ask you the same thing, princess.”

Because of their height difference, he has to look down at her and she has to look up at him. She hates it. “It’s my dad’s dojo, remember?”

He jaw tightens for a moment before he smirks in that way of his. “Well, you don’t have to worry any more, LaRusso. I was just about to leave.”

Sam scowls at the use of her nickname, watching distantly as he moves closer to her, seemingly heading out the door, before he stops at her side.

She can smell the lingering scent of his cologne mixed with sweat as he leans slightly closer. It messes with her senses; his proximity and the intensity in his blue eyes does something strange to her stomach. “Train all you want, princess.” His low voice is husky, sending a shiver down her spine. “We all know it’s gonna be _me_ who wins the All Valley.”

“You forget, we’re on the same team now.”

He smirks again, shrugging once like the cocky dick he can be. “Still gonna be me. Just watch and wait.”

She crosses her arms over her chest, attempting to put up a blockage between them. “Is that what you were doing here so late, then?”

His intense gaze wavers, his eyes slowly dropping as his jaw tightens again. He turns to leave, and Sam is about to ask the question again before he speaks, quietly, his voice no longer cocky or nonchalant. It almost sounds... broken.

“No,” he says, “I wasn’t.”

Sam watches him leave, his words echoing around in her head, the underlying pain in his voice evident. He snatches up the towel and leaves, not sparing a backward glance. She forces herself to move, shoving the headphones back into her ear before blasting her music on full volume.

When she starts punching, the old picture she imagined before she arrived is replaced with blue eyes and a head of spiky black hair.

———

A week later, Sam is surprised to see Hawk at Miyagi-Do training at night again. She hadn’t seen him there after-hours since the first time, but she saw him during the day with everyone else. 

She noticed him looking at her a few times during training, but he didn’t say anything about that night. Whenever they had to interact, it would be like usual: with scoffs and eye rolls and the infuriating use of the “princess” nickname.

The intense way he trained during the day was reminiscent to the first night at the dojo when Sam saw him. Hawk would always beat whoever came at him from the circle, and Sam noticed a few times he had to physically stop himself from what he used to be taught at Cobra Kai: no mercy. The person he beat then shrugged off the restraint like it was nothing, but Sam took notice of it.

For the first few times, Sam just brushed it off as his usual attitude, but when it kept happening, and the broken expression on his face would take over, even for a split second, she started to worry—either for the safety of the other Miyagi-Dos or something else, she can’t tell.

And she’s still worried now.

Hawk kicks and punches the bag with a renewed ferocity Sam has never seen before, guttural cries tearing from his throat as moonlight coats his tensed form. The tattoo is slightly visible again, rippling with each of his movements.

She briefly considers asking what’s wrong, but she already knows how that will go. She can picture the conversation perfectly, but she know that it would be fruitless, no matter how funny her responses might be. So instead, she swallows down her thoughts and her worry and switches the backyard lights on with a definitive flick.

Hawk jumps and whips around to face her, and she’s startled by his appearance. He’s not got his hair into a mohawk today; instead the now-shorter black strands frame around his face widely, brushing into his eyes. He runs a hand through his sweat-soaked hair, pushing it off his forehead. Sam watches the movement carefully, not fully comprehending what she’s seeing here, right now. 

He’s slowly starting to look like Eli again.

Hawk shoves away his earphones and starts for the door. “It’s all yours, princess,” he grumbles.

“You don’t have to leave,” she blurts, unable to stop herself. She hears him stop in the middle of the dojo, his heavy breathing slowly receding. Sam turns around to face him, watching the muscles in his shoulders rise and fall. “I could use a sparring partner.”

Hawk turns around then, a thousand emotions seemingly running through his face and eyes. He takes a quick glance at the door behind him like he’s contemplating making a run for it, but then the corner of his mouth quirks upward quickly, barely even there, and he says, “Sure, LaRusso.”

A few minutes later, Sam finds herself facing Hawk, a fighting stance mirroring her own. They circle each other for a moment, but she’s caught up in the intense look in his eyes, like he’s trying to pick her apart and put her together at the same time. 

She’s the first one to strike, surprisingly. He ducks under the fist aimed for his head, turning around and blocking the attack with her elbow. A small groan of frustration escapes her as he blocks each and every attack of hers, attempting many times to strike himself, before Sam remembers many of the lessons her dad taught her. 

They fight for a long time, their heavy breathing and punches the only two things she can focus on. Until, of course, his piercing blue eyes roam over her face, no trace of the anger she saw before—just determined focus.

They’ve fought like this a few times, with the others around them. It was only for a few moments as she won, replacing him in the circle. She could tell then that he was focusing on her movements, storing them away for a moment just like this. 

She blocks a punch to the side, spins around and kicks him in the stomach, sending him back a few steps.

“Shit,” he breathes, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he presses his palm to the spot she kicked. He slowly looks up at her, a small, genuine smile pulling at his lips as he looks at her with admiration. 

She pushes the feeling in her chest that she recognizes too deeply and says, just as breathless as him, “Close the gap.”

He does as she says. In a move as quick as lightning, she grabs his leg when he tries to kick at her, swiping his other leg and sending him to the ground. She falls on top of him, pinning his arms above his head with little to no restraint from him.

Sam finds herself unable to look away from his face, struck by the way he’s looking at her. She can only describe it one way, and it’s the one way that she finds does something both amazing and painful to her heart.

He’s looking at her like she’s the only thing in the world. 

No, that’s not right. They _hate_ each other. God, that’s the last way he would look at her.

Sam blinks and looks away the moment she catches herself staring at his lips, pushing the thoughts about how soft they look from her mind. 

In the dim light of the dojo, his skin looks paler than usual, the scar on his lip standing out more starkly. She fights the impulse to trace it, ending up at his lips before she—

She blinks once more, cursing herself and wondering what’s wrong with her as she says with a small smile, “I won.”

“Did you?” His eyes flash wickedly and then—

She’s on her back, a shocked gasp escaping her lips as he puts a light arm across her collarbone, miming blocking her in place.

And then, he’s looking at her the same way again, blue eyes tracing her face for a long time.

She can’t help but stare at him wordlessly. Back before he became Hawk, she always thought he was cute, despite what Yasmine used to say about his lip and sweaters. She could never laugh along with her, because she didn’t agree. He was cute. Now though, she finds that he looks both wild _and_ even more attractive, with his hair falling in strands around his face as he looks down at her, chest heaving.

She accepts defeat, almost leaning up to do something stupid before he pushes himself off her, wiping his sweat-soaked hair from his face with a slightly shaky hand. 

“I—I should go.” He scoops up his towel and half-empty water bottle, not really meeting her eye when he looks back in her direction. “It’s getting late.”

He doesn’t give her time to respond. With a quick nod, he leaves the dojo. Sam watches his silhouette in the door recede and wonders, for a long time, what the hell just happened here tonight.

———

She doesn’t see him at the dojo for a few weeks. Sam wonders, briefly, if he felt the strange tension between them that night. She’s both afraid for a yes or a no.

Neither of them mention it when they see each other again. 

Knowing that he’s in the yard already, Sam grabs the two bos from the wall, twirling one around before heading for the backyard, sliding the door open with a smile.

Hawk looks up at her from where he was staring at his phone, blue eyes wide as he pulls the headphones from his ear and stuffs them in his pocket. “Hey, I—”

“Catch,” Sam interrupts, throwing the bo at him. He catches it easily, tracing a tentative finger over the pattern before twirling it between and under his arms in a movement Sam can’t help but marvel at.

Hawk places the end of the weapon to the ground and looks up at her from where he’s stationed on the grass, not moving forward even as Sam heads back into the brightly-lit dojo. 

“You coming?” she calls out to him. 

His laughter is a strange but a welcoming comparison to how he used to be as he wanders into the dojo next to her. “You sure you trust me with this in the dojo, princess? I can be quite destructive when it comes to fights.”

Sam feels like she should hate the use of her nickname, but all it does is something strange but appealing to her stomach. “I remember,” she says, turning to face him with the bo in a fighting stance. “Demetri let slip that it was _you_ who threw Rickenberger into the glass table.”

“Hey now. That flip was badass.” He lets out another laugh, leaning some of his weight on the bo. “If I’m remembering correctly, you weren’t there at that moment. I _saved_ Demetri from Rickenberger. Throwing him into the table was just the cherry on top.”

Sam rolls her eyes, but she can’t help the small smile pulling at her lips. Months ago, she never thought she’d be in this situation with him—trading smiles and laughter. She forgets sometimes that the boy—the _man_ —in front of her, the one who is smiling so wide back at her it’s actually making her smile wider herself, is the same man who broke Demetri’s arm, who dislocated Robby’s shoulder at his first All Valley, who messed with the Miyagi-Dos only a few months back. A lot has changed since then.

She puts on a veneer of confidence as she gets into her own fighting stance, the lessons with the bo coming back to her. She relaxes her shoulders, lifts her head higher and says, “Come at me.”

He doesn’t hesitate. With a quick over the shoulder attack, Sam easily blocks it, smacking his end of the bo to the ground and pinning it there before spinning around quickly and landing a hit on his arm. 

He lets out a surprise grunt of pain, stumbling back a step and staring at her with those damn bright blue eyes. 

“Come on, you know how to do this.” Sam presses the end of the weapon to the ground, watching as he rubs absentmindedly at the red spot on his upper arm. “Think of it like a lightsaber or something.”

He blinks at her, all traces of pain and cockiness gone from his face. “You’ve... seen _Star Wars_?”

“Who hasn’t? Now, come on!” 

She gives him only a second to react before her bo clashes with his. She goes slower this time, giving him ample opportunity to counter-attack her moves. Before long, he’s able to block her incoming parries, finally pushing his bo against hers, looking at her through the cross of their joined weapons. 

“Very good,” she says breathlessly, giving an approved nod. “You’re a quick learner.”

“I’ve been told that before,” he replies, his voice quiet—the low tone sending a shiver down her spine once again. 

She looks up at him and is struck at how she’s seeing him in a higher definition for the first time; his eyes appear bluer than before, piercing through hers with an emotion she can’t seem to place, but wants to find out. 

They lower their bos, but he doesn’t step back. Sam finds herself unable to breathe properly, the heat radiating off of him clouding her senses and sending a warm sensation through her chest. She can feel the wall right at her back, wanting to ground her, but she already knows and accepts the fact that it won’t be able to hold her upright for long.

Sam can feel it, can practically taste the adrenaline on her tongue. She can hear the pounding of her heart in her chest and wonders if his is beating as fast as hers. She’s afraid to know both.

She stares at him, at his mouth, dizzyingly close to hers, her head spinning with the force of her desire to know, exactly, what he tastes like, if his lips are as soft as they look. Her fingers almost ache with the need to trace the hard lines of his shoulders and collarbone, feeing the power and the sturdiness of them.

It’s a strange feeling, really, considering what they used to be to each other. 

She blinks again and suddenly he’s even closer, his body almost pressing into hers, just a breath away. His hand that’s not holding onto the bo reaches up, slowly, like he’s about to touch her cheek, to trace her jaw, his thumb inching closer and closer to her lip, and she feels herself almost leaning into the touch, readying herself for it—

Hawk’s phone alarm blares and the world comes back to her, grounding her once again. She can breathe again as he places the bo against the wall and takes two steps back. She scarcely misses his warmth as he yanks his phone from his pocket, the faint blue light making his skin slightly paler. 

“Sorry,” he says, not meeting her eyes as he takes a long time sliding his phone back into his pocket. “I forgot that I set an alarm.”

“What was it for?” she finds herself saying, changing the subject in a vain attempt to alleviate the sudden tension between them. 

“Just how long I should be with the punching bag before I changed to something else.” He looks almost sheepish, and it makes him look like Eli again. “I... didn’t know you were gonna come back again.”

She can’t respond, the pounding in her chest too much to ignore. She tries and fails to push the feeling of his body close to hers, the feeling of his warm breath fanning across her neck as his face came dangerously near hers. She didn’t hate it. She distantly wants it to happen again.

Hawk shakes his head and steps back again, running both of his hands through his hair as he lets out a breath between his teeth. “I should go,” he finally says, his words uneven and breathless. “It’s late.”

“Yeah,” Sam agrees quietly, watching him take his stuff and head for the door, and she’s about to turn away before her attention is caught by his blue gaze once more.

Hawk stares at her from the door for a few seconds, a thousand words passing between them, each one making her head spin.

But one look stands out above the others. A promise. 

She’s both terrified and thrilled to know the true meaning behind it.

———

“The balance is key here,” Sam says, finding herself once again on top of the round deck in the middle of the koi pond.

Hawk doesn’t look up from his side of the wood, shaking a few times as he holds his arms out beside him. “ _The balance is key here_ , are you kidding me, princess? It seems impossible on this thing, especially during this time of night.”

Sam rolls her eyes, swaying only slightly after having mastered the balance when she used to practice with Robby. She thought that doing this again would bring back bad memories, make her angry or whatever, but surprisingly it didn’t. Not with him.

“Come on, don’t be a pussy,” she says, watching with satisfaction as Hawk’s eyes widen at her words, an emotion she can’t place swimming behind the blue. “It’s not even that cold out.”

All of the yard lights are on tonight, so it’s easier for them to see what they’re doing. It also makes it easier to see him. His hair has been swept backward tonight, not soaked with sweat like it usually is. Though she’s sure in a few moments, it’ll be soaked with koi pond water. The black strands seem even darker at this time of night, and she finds it hard to believe, sometimes, that Hawk and Eli were the exact same person. They are completely different and yet, the same.

During the day at school and when they train, he has his hair into its signature mohawk, but when he’s with her, at night, his hair is like this—relaxed and not so much... trying to prove a point that he’s changed significantly, in a way.

Sam holds her hands out like her dad taught her, instructing Hawk to do the same. “Don’t look at the deck—look at me,” she says, keeping her gaze locked on his intense eye. “Copy my movements, okay?”

She starts slowly, keeping her breathing even as she remains in constant eye contact with him. She wavers slightly, distracted by the way he’s looking at her before she detaches herself from the emotions. Knowing that he’s just trying to concentrate on the movements, she keeps her head straight as she turns sharply to do the next move, feeling him do the same—

Before he slips and tumbles into the water.

The half of the deck she’s standing on sinks into the water quicker than she can react, and she drops backward into the freezing pond. She re-surfaces quickly, breathing in as she feels her lungs constrict from the cold water, watching Hawk do the same—laughing all the way as he brushes his hair back from his face.

“Come on,” she says, pressing down on the decking and nodding for him to do the same, trying to ignore the way the water is making his tank-top stick to the hard lines of muscle across his chest and stomach. Even at this time of night, she can see the reaper tattoo clearly with the light gray material soaked through. “Let’s try again.”

They try, fail, try again and fail again before they finally complete the kata without slipping off the deck. She smiles, her heart fluttering when his grin matches her own. 

Finally finished, they bow to each other and make their way inside, the chill of the early morning threatening to dampen the upbeat mood they both find themselves in. 

Sam slowly wraps the towel around herself, catching Hawk doing the same across from her, standing impressively tall with drops of water falling from his chin and hair. She feels the impulse to close the distance between them, to wrap the towel around both of them and feel the coolness of the water on his lips herself, but she stops and forces the urge away. _Where are we with each other, after everything that happened?_ she thinks, catching his eye for only a moment before he looks away quickly. She turns around and slowly wipes the water from her eyes. _Probably nothing,_ she concludes, pretending she doesn’t feel the deep ache in her chest.

“You did well today,” she says, smiling a little to herself as she directs the words at the wall, hoping he can hear her. 

“Thanks, it was... different to our usual training.” Struck by the soft tone of his voice, she turns her head and catches him smiling as he dries his hair. The strands stick up in an adorably wild way. He holds her gaze for a long time. “Thank you for teaching me.”

“My pleasure,” she says, turning back around. She shivers once, feeling the need to change into warmer clothes before she catches a cold or something.

Sam’s about to open her mouth to say that she’s going to head home before she suddenly feels him behind her. The heat of his body temperature is dizzying. She’s afraid to move in fear that she’ll drop into a puddle. She closes her eyes, silently begging for what she’s been hoping for for a long time. 

His hand lifts slowly, coming toward her head, and she sucks in a sharp breath as silently as she can—

But she feels something being pulled from her hair and his presence recedes carefully. She counts down three seconds before willing herself to turn around. 

Hawk lifts what he plucked from her hair a little higher. “You had a leaf in your hair,” he says, depositing it on a shelf. 

The heat she felt in her stomach doesn’t disappear, not really—she doesn’t think it ever will around him—but she does find the ability to breathe easily again. She thanks him, both disappointed and happy when her phone buzzes from the ground. 

She tears her eyes away from him and stoops to retrieve her phone, the background of all the Miyagi-Dos and Eagle Fangs smiling back at her. 

It’s her dad.

 _Where are you?_ His text is short and to-the-point.

**at the dojo. couldn’t sleep, but i’m coming home now.**

_Are you alone? ___

____

____

She looks up at Hawk who’s suddenly taken an interest in the creeds and pictures on the wall. Already making a decision that she hates, she looks down at her phone, typing furiously.

**yeah. don’t worry though, i’m fine. i’ll be home in five minutes.**

She hates lying to her dad, but it saves the conversation about why, exactly, Hawk’s here at the dojo with her, raising her heart rate and causing the impulse to close the distance between them. Of course, she wouldn’t tell her dad that.

She looks up at Hawk again as she slides her phone into her still-wet pocket, wondering if she should say something nonchalant about the tension between them. But she quickly refrains from the thought, partly from embarrassment and the fact that she doesn’t really know how to. Whatever she feels for him, she’s sure he doesn’t feel it back—not after what they used to be with each other. That just seems to be the concrete reason why not.

Though, her mind adds, the way he called her “princess” back before their little tryst, if she can even call it that, was in an almost hostile way, like he was mocking her—the way Tory does. But now, he says it like it’s just a generic nickname mixed with hints of flirtation. 

He makes her head spin. She’s never contemplated her feelings like this before. She doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

“I should head back,” Sam finally says, slinging the towel over her arm before hugging it to her chest. “I think my dad caught on to the fact that I wasn’t in the house after they went to bed.”

He smiles, pulling the ends of his towel which is slung across his neck. “I’m sure I’ll see you here again soon.” She nods, her heart jumping at the thought before he heads for the door, looking at her at the frame. “See you, princess,” he says, then he’s gone.

She locks away the emotion pooling in her stomach as her nickname in his deep voice echoes through her head. But as Sam watches his shadow disappear further away from the dojo, she allows herself a moment to feel it all, soaking in barrage of emotions she wants to explore, but can’t. Not for the moment.

As she switches all of the light off, locks the dojo and slumps into her car, she wonders how she’s going to explain to her dad why she’s arriving from here soaking wet.

———

It’s a Friday night, it’s cold, and yet she still finds herself parking outside the dojo. Whether she’s here to train or to just see Hawk, she can’t really tell anymore. A few times she went back at night and he didn’t show up there, and she’d be lying if she said it didn’t disappoint her a little. 

But he always texted her a reason why he wasn’t there, even though she kept saying he doesn’t need a reason not to come to the dojo. 

She locks the car door and hefts her duffle bag up higher on her shoulder, her heart rate not slowing down when she notices the dojo lights on. 

She doesn’t really know what she was expecting when she opened the door and dropped the bag down on the floor, but it definitely wasn’t this.

Hawk’s tattoo is the first thing she sees when she spots him sitting on the ground, shirtless. But then she notices the blood second, and starts to worry—her heart dropping to her stomach too quickly.

She rushes over to his side, startling him. “What happened?” Her voice is breathless, all the oxygen seemingly gone from her lungs. 

Hawk grimaces as he turns around to face her. “It’s not as serious as it looks, trust me,” he says, though his words sound strained as he presses a blood-soaked hand to his side. 

She tentatively reaches out, but stops herself. She withdraws her hand and instead asks, “What did you do?” 

He looks down, strands of his hair brushing into his eyes. It’s not into a mohawk again. “I was training and slipped, slashing my side open on one of the rocks by the koi pond. It was my clumsy ass who wasn’t looking where I was stepping.”

She nods slowly, already up and grabbing the first-aid kit her dad stores in the corner or the room. From how cold it is outside, the grass probably would’ve been wet today. 

She knees down next to him and instructs him to sit up. He watches her movements intensely as she pops the box open, pulling out the necessary items without ceremony. 

“How do you know what to do?” he asks conversationally, looking like he’s fighting a grimace. “You want to be a doctor after college?”

“No,” she replies with a smile. “I’ve had my fair share of cuts and scrapes since I’ve learned karate.” She tips some rubbing alcohol onto a rag, soaking it. “It helps to know the basics of cleaning injuries. The amount of times I’ve kicked my dad in the jaw is countless, but I’ve always cleaned it up for him afterward.”

He nods slowly, and Sam wonders if he’s thinking of the fights they’ve been a part of. The one at school was probably the worst for her, and the one at her house was just the wrong place. But something good came out of both of them.

Sam’s stronger now.

And Hawk realized who he really is.

Hawk sucks in a sharp breath as she starts to clean away the blood, noticing that it’s not as deep as all of the red makes it out to be. 

“It’s not too serious,” she says. “You won’t need stitches or anything.”

“Thank God,” he mumbles. 

She tries her hardest to focus on the wound, but her attention keeps drifting to the other parts of his exposed torso, expanding and constricting with each swipe she makes with the rag. Her eyes slide up to his reaper tattoo for only a few seconds before she looks back down. She wants to trace the hard lines there with her fingers, to press down and see how the muscles in his shoulder move. Her fingers almost twitch with the impulse to do it.

Almost like he read her thoughts, his gaze drifts up, roving over her face before landing on her lips for only a second, but it’s enough for her to want to stop what she’s doing, to drop the wet rag and push the supplies away, to climb into his lap and—

 _Stop_ , she scolds herself, focusing on the injury. Once it’s as clean as it can be, she puts a large Band-Aid on it and finally wraps it a few times in bandage, her fingers smoothing over the hard muscles of his stomach as she tucks the material in on itself. 

She looks up when she feels his hand hear her face. Her heart both stops and speeds up as he tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear, whispering a quiet _thank you_ that almost gets lost to the pounding in her ears. 

She can’t seem to look away from his mouth, her whole body vibrating with the need to kiss him, to feel the softness of his lips that she’s only ever imagined and to breathe in his familiar scent of both sweat and cologne.

Sam’s eyes slide shut, his fingers—slightly calloused from numerous hours of training—sliding down her jaw so slowly it’s agony. She can’t stop herself in time as she catches his hand, leaning into his touch. His sigh after is the most precious thing she’s ever heard. She leans forward, carefully, and she can feel Hawks’s breath shudder against her skin, hot. Her other hand tightens on his waist, thumb rubbing circles into his side, and this is the only thing she can think about right now. Not training, not how cold it is, nothing. Just _this._

They are impossibly close. One more move forward and she’d have to climb onto his lap. She’s tempted to, if the way he stares down at her lips and brushes his fingers against her jaw is any indication.

She feels his forehead touch hers, and the sweetness of the gesture makes the ache and the hunger in her stomach that much more powerful. She thinks she can just feel the whisper of his mouth against hers, and she wants to lean in and press her mouth against his firmly, to brush her fingers through his hair and pull him even closer, and she is about to do just that when—

The lights of the dojo flicker and go out. 

They come back on a moment later, but by then, Hawk and Sam find themselves further apart, staring at the ceiling with identical looks of shock. They don’t look at each other again as she makes a half-hearted excuse and makes her way out of the dojo, feeling like she’s left a piece of her heart there.

———

She didn’t look at him all through school and training. He starts to worry if he’s ruined everything between them. 

Hawk runs his hands down the length of his face as he makes his way to the Miyagi-Do dojo, a million thoughts running through his head. He doesn’t know where to start with Sam when he arrives, as he already knows that she’ll be there. 

Back when he was still a Cobra Kai, he would’ve berated himself for being a pussy and to just get it over with. But when it comes to his heart, he takes caution. There’s only so many times a heart can be broken.

He smooths his hand through his hair, opting to keep it down when he comes to see her. He’s seen the way she looks at him without the mohawk, the way her eyes crinkle in the corners, like she’s thinking the same thing that he is.

It makes him look like Eli again.

However hard he tried to push that part of him down, like when he broke Demetri’s arm and even joined Cobra Kai, with Sam, he doesn’t want to pretend anymore. He can just be himself. 

It scares him.

But he was taught not to be scared anymore.

He pushes the door to the dojo open, having already steeled himself for when he sees Sam. And there she is.

She’s as beautiful as she always is—wearing the tank-top she wore when they were training on the deck. The skin-tight pants she’s wearing hug her body so perfectly that it’s making an ache form in his stomach. The need to trace every curve, every freckle on her body is overwhelming. The reaction to his touch all those days ago was the most amazing thing he’s ever experienced. He didn’t want to stop touching her, looking at her—and all that time, he wanted to believe that the emotion swimming behind those bright blue eyes was the same as his. But he won’t flatter himself that much.

She’s leaning against the wall, texting. Her porcelain skin looks even more perfect with the glow of her phone shining on her. Either she doesn’t hear his approach or is choosing to ignore him, he isn’t sure, but the weight of the situation they’re in alleviates only slightly. When he’s around her, it brings out a calmer attitude toward everything. He doesn’t see the world like everyone is out to get him, or is scared of him. He sees everything the way he should.

“Hey,” he says, dropping his towel to the floor and not venturing any further into the dojo. 

“Hi,” she replies, looking at him for a split second before finalizing the text and shoving the phone in her pocket. “So, should we get started? I was thinking maybe we could do the punching bags for a bit and then—”

“Wait,” he interrupts, watching the rapid rise and fall of her shoulders with her back to him, “can we just talk about what happened here—”

“No.” The words halt in his throat at the abrupt tone of her voice. She turns around sharply, blue eyes piercing into his. God, even when she’s angry, she’s still beautiful. “We can’t. Whatever happened, it was... it shouldn’t have happened, okay? Let’s just leave it at that.”

He stares at her, the words landing like punches he’s felt many times during training. The hiding Eli part of him says not to feel too hurt by her words, but the more present Hawk part is both angered _and_ hurt. 

“Why’s that, princess? Huh?” he demands, his fists shaking at his sides as his voice rises in anger. “Is it because I was a Cobra Kai? Because I broke Demetri’s arm? Is that it?”

Her anger flares up as she takes one step forward. “No, it’s—”

But he doesn’t let her continue. “Or is it because I’m not as good a person as Miguel or Robby? I’m trying to be better, okay? Kreese just... he burrowed his way into my head and I didn’t realize until it was too late. The damage was already done.”

“Listen, I—”

“Sensei Lawrence tried to warn me, but I was too far up my own ass to see that he was right.”

“I—”

“I ruined a relationship because I became a bully. Now I’m glad Moon has moved on, her and Piper are actually a great couple, but even with friendships I still manage to fuck everything up.”

She takes another step forward, her mouth open to speak, but he can’t seem to stop—no matter how hard he tries.

“I know I don’t deserve a redemption after everything I’ve done to Demetri or Robby.” He locks his eyes with hers. “Or you.”

She doesn’t move any closer, but her face relaxes slightly. 

“I’ve been feeling really shitty about everything I’ve done,” he continues, slower this time, letting the words find their way to hurt his feelings—like he deserves. “That’s why I came here the first time, trying to get my anger out. And even now, I still don’t think I deserve a place in Miyagi-Do-Eagle-Fang Karate.” 

The silence that stretches on after his words only sets them in place. She doesn’t disagree, but she also doesn’t agree. But he knows what’s true. 

She steps even closer again, leaving only a few feet between them that feels cavernous. “Listen, don’t interrupt me this time,” she says almost jokingly, extracting a tiny laugh from him. “But believe it or not, you’re a good person now. I don’t blame you for what you did. It was, like you said, Kreese’s fault. I’ve never been able to trust that man since my dad told me the stories about him.”

He feels rooted in his place, his heart hammering after his speech and the way she’s looking at him now. 

“Everyone has dark parts of their lives, it’s what makes us human. If we didn’t feel so strongly about what’s good or what’s bad, that lack of morality wouldn’t really make us human,” she says. “It shows us flaws, and sometimes, the flaws are the best parts of people.”

As she was speaking, I don’t think she realized she was coming closer to him, but suddenly they are about two feet away from each other. His heart rate will never slow down now.

“So whatever you did, Eli, just know that it wasn’t because of weakness or anything like that. It just mean you are human.”

Her face falls when she sees the expression on his. His name—his _real_ name—flowing from her mouth is the best thing he’s ever heard in his life. The moment she said it, he didn’t really register the rest of her words; his name echoed around his head, sending another impulse through his body. God he wants to kiss her so bad, to hear her say his name again, slowly, breathing it against his mouth.

“Shit,” she suddenly says, taking a few steps back, and now he knows this time, he hasn’t done anything wrong. It almost seems like he’s done something right, for once. “Hawk, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to call you that.”

He shakes his head slowly, a small smile breaking on his face. Unable to resist with his name on her lips spurring him on, he takes the few remains steps forward, closing the distance between them—

And he’s kissing her.

Every thought is sucked from his head, replaced with nothing but _her_ ; the way she tastes and the way she reacts to his touch when his hands slide from her jaw to the back of her neck is amazing. She tilts her head up more, pressing herself closer to him as her fingers raise to his neck, curling her hands through his hair.

His fingers tremble and it takes him a few moments to realize so is she. He’s about to pull away and apologize before her fingers find their way under his shirt and his ability to breathe disappears as her nails scrape against his skin. He pulls away for only a second before capturing her lips again, harder this time. 

As she begins to kiss him back, her hands slide up his back, resting here. Her nails scrape against the center of his back, just at the bottom of his tattoo, as he kisses her a little harder, the passion there but restrained, like he doesn’t know if this is what she really wants.

She sighs his name again against his lips and he groans, relieved that she doesn’t want to stop. His previous thoughts disappear.

Even though he hates to admit it, he’s only ever kissed one person, Moon. And while she was a good kisser, the way Sam kisses him—passionately, slowly—it’s the only way he ever wants to be kissed. It’s the only way he ever wants to kiss her. 

But then it changes and God, does it feel amazing.

She sweeps her tongue across the seam of his lips, making his knees weak a little, a bit pathetically really, but he can’t find a reason to care. He sighs against her mouth, but it sounds more like a moan, and she pulls him closer, laughing lightly against his lips.

He doesn’t know how long they stay like this—intertwined in each other’s arms, but he finally pulls away from her. He doesn’t let himself go far, continuing to hold her around the waist and tipping forward to press his forehead against hers. He can’t open his eyes yet, afraid that the last... however long it was would’ve all been a dream. 

So he doesn’t. Instead, he just stands here with her—forehead pressed against his, so close their noses are brushing—and breathes in the warm air they created in the cold dojo.

When he finally opens his eyes, the way Sam’s looking at him—with a thousand more words and emotions swirling in the blue than he can count—steals the breath right from his lungs.

He pulls away and cups her jaw, breathing heavily from the kiss as his thumb brushes against her bottom lip. “God I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” he says, the words hot against her lips. 

She move a lock of his hair from his eyes, smiling so sweetly it makes his chest clench. “Me too.” She presses her forehead to his again as she says, the quiet words like a breath against his lips, “You deserve so much, Eli. You’ve already proved, time and time again, that you want to be a good person, to redeem yourself, and you know what?” She leans back and looks at him intensely. “You already have.”

He smiles at her, a little sadly, as he pulls her even closer, pressing a hand to her back so she arches against him. “Thank you, Sam,” he says against her lips, before capturing them properly once more.

She leans back slightly after a few good moment, almost considering him from a distance. “Does this mean I can call you Eli from now on?”

“ _You_ definitely can,” he says, his hands tracing over her hips. “But the others, well... we’ll just have to see about that.”

She laughs lightly, coming back closer.

His eyes roam over her face, taking her in, memorizing each of her features like this is the last time he gets to do this. His gaze locks onto hers as he tugs her a little closer. “You know, we should really speak about this...”

“I know we should,” she agrees. “But right now, I just wanna stay like this.” She presses her forehead against his once more, and Eli swears he can feel her heart beating against his at the same rhythm.

“We can talk about it later,” she continues, quietly. “Agreed?”

He smiles then, the world falling away as he brushes his lips against hers once more, her smile matching his own. 

“Agreed.”

**Author's Note:**

> your comments and kudos are always appreciated! let me know if you want to see more of sam/hawk from me :)


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